I remember someone saying that they took a few years of ASL. I can sign but am awful at glossing and was just wondering if anyone had the gloss to Away in a Manger. I would like my kids to do it in the church Christmas program but dont feel confident in my ability to gloss it. Especially since they will be "singing" it.

The translation from English over to ASL is called glossing. Basically ASL is not signed in English order and also does not use alot of descriptives and conjuctions that English uses. Also, because ASL uses alot of facial expressions to get degree and meaning across, gloss lets me know how to express certain phrases. The intonation of the phrase so to speak.

In English I say: I have one baby boy and two girls
In ASL I sign: I HAVE BOY BABY ONE, GIRLS TWO.

That's a fairly simple sentence but there are several rules about word order and so on and I don't trust in my ability to gloss just yet!

OK, I know what you mean, but didn't know they called it that. My favorite is "Mommy, Daddy, ZOOM! car library". This was by a 3yo Deaf child whose parents were also Deaf. I don't know of anywhere that you can actually get that. The people I know do it themselves. Do you have an ASL teacher who would do it for you? Also, who will you be doing this for? If you're doing it as a performance for hearing people and not for Deaf, it wouldn't matter if one or two things were "off". Especially with music; there's lots of "poetic license".

Well I would be doing some creative licensing as part of glossing a song is adding my own "emotions" to it. We are signing for a hearing audience, but I since I am still learning and on the off chance that we do have a Deaf visitor come in that day I try to keep it close as possible.

I have asked an interpreter friend of my mom's to help so hopefully she will be able to. If I can just get a basic gloss I will be good!

I will look for what you suggested. I may also just have to go borrow a glossing book from the library and just see if I can get close.

I don't think I've ever seen a song signed completely correctly. Most of the time, the signing is for show rather than for the benefit of a deaf person. When I took an ASL class, we had to sign a children's book. We just signed the basic ideas and phrases.